


Drowned-Fish-White

by full_moon_pills



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Anxious Dean Winchester, Crying Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester Has Nightmares, Dean Winchester Has PTSD, Depressed Dean Winchester, Emotionally Hurt Dean Winchester, Episode: s15e03 The Rupture, Episode: s15e03 The Rupture - Bunker Breakup Scene, Grieving Dean Winchester, Hell Trauma, Hurt Dean Winchester, M/M, Mute Dean Winchester, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Post-Episode: s15e03 The Rupture, Protective Sam Winchester, Torture, i'm sorry guys this is sad, just a bunch of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-08 06:54:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21471865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/full_moon_pills/pseuds/full_moon_pills
Summary: Alastair is so close Dean can hear both their hearts beating now, his loud in his ears, the demon’s just below the surface of his chest, and it really shouldn’t surprise him that hearts can beat in Hell. The fact still clenches in his throat, proof of something he can’t name.He knows, somehow, that right about now there’s supposed to be someone else there. Someone here to save him.>Cas leaves. Dean deals.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 8
Kudos: 160





	Drowned-Fish-White

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys!
> 
> this is basically just Dean angst, I'm sorry but it is. I fully support Cas' decision to leave, this is just my take on how Dean deals (or, well, doesn't).
> 
> trigger warnings for rape/non-con (not that explicit) in the beginning, torture, anxiety, and a fair bit of implied depression as well. as always, take care of yourself!
> 
> the idea for the title is completely stolen from hollyesque's Sherlock fic Croatia-Water-Blue (which is a masterpiece, go read it) and I claim nothing. all credit goes to them.
> 
> also, this is not beta'd, so please be kind :) comments are very much appreciated!

The first night after, he dreams of Hell.

Long limbs, reaching, reaching, arms stretching to impossible lengths to twist though his gaping open stomach, and someone is screaming. People are screaming, plural. So many screams it makes his head spin, spiral, eyes clenching loose and falling back. They catch smears of blood and burned skin, red on a razor and the smell of singed flesh.

Dean’s jaw locks against the beating in his chest.

And suddenly Alastair’s voice is there, a soft croon against the shell of his ear. He pulls back and Dean sees hypothermic-blue skin pulled taunt against sharp bone, pale forehead glimmering unnaturally with sweat, eye bags dark. They lock eyes and Alastair’s are drowned-fish white.

Alastair is so close Dean can hear both their hearts beating now, his loud in his ears, the demon’s just below the surface of his chest, and it really shouldn’t surprise him that hearts can beat in Hell. The fact still clenches in his throat, proof of something he can’t name.

He knows, somehow, that right about now there’s supposed to be someone else there. Someone here to save him.

But time stretches on, counted only the clicks of Alastair’s tongue, the nicks of his knife. Hot breath on Dean’s face, his lips, he mutters, _good boy, Dean. You’re all mine._

Dean’s gut roils. He pleads, _no, not this, anything but this, please…_ But Alastair doesn’t listen. Says, _so pretty, you’re begging._

Dean’s bent in half to let Alastair in and he only realizes that there’s something worse than the demon hard and pounding into him when he slows, coaxes Dean’s betraying body into arousion, tells him _you asked for it_, and makes love to him.

His eyes shoot open and he stares at the ceiling, paralyzed, can feel himself shuddering even though, by the time he glances down, his body is frozen in a coil of perspiring sheets and too many pillows. When it’s safe to move, he reaches a hand up for his gun and curls his fingers around it until his knuckles are white and painful and his heart’s stopped beating so fast. Dean tries to click off the safety and brings it up to his face in confusion, squinting at the switch til he remembers that that’s how he sleeps now. With the safety turned off.

He lurches to his feet. The urge to feel clean is back again, and Dean can’t help but be miffed that after all this time, his response to this is still the same.

He supposes that’s why purgatory was good to him. But then no - he can’t, won’t. Won’t go there.

Sammy’s been through hell the last week, what with Jack and Rowena, so Dean makes sure to tiptoe his way past his little brother’s bedroom on his way to the bathroom. Kid deserves some sleep.

Dean, on the other hand.

He strips and steps into the shower, and time blurs into hours as he scrubs at his skin, blindly staring at the tiles, water on his back going from cold to a searing heat that he stays under, relishes because it _hurts_ his skin, and then streams back into cold, cold, cold. Soap abandoned, he shivers, waiting for the tightness in his chest to ease.

It’s been a while since he’s dreamed of Hell - it’s been years, actually. He’s not gonna lie that out of everything, this sort of dream was not was he was expecting. A rouge archangel, sure, or Rowena sucking souls into her body until her skin is alight with broken grace. But Hell? Alastair? It’s been too long for those kind of things to bother him anymore, there’s been too many horrors along the way for him to care about the hooks that had once sunken into his skin, ripped him into angles.

By the time he’s finished, he dries off and pulls up his jeans, pausing to swipe a hand against the mirror, a clean cut through the steam, and reaches for the shaving cream and razor. He’s making his first line through the cream when there’s a knock on the door.

“Yeah,” Dean says, and Sam enters, soft-footed and pajama-clad.

“You need the bathroom?” he asks without looking up.

“No,” says Sam, and there’s a pregnant pause before he adds, “You just. Um. You’ve been in here five hours, Dean."

So much for not waking his brother up, he thinks, and the coil of anger tightens in his stomach. “I wake you?”

Sam’s eyebrows furrow, head shakes jerkily. “Naw, I never really - never went to sleep.”

“Hm.”

“I know you’ve been worried about me,” his brother starts, and it’s almost comforting, really, how he sounds like he’s about to launch into one of his speeches about self-care and c-ptsd and all those things he learned in his five psychology classes at Stanford, but then his gut lurches because _Dean_ took that away, and if it weren’t for him, Sam would be married and taking his kids to baseball games on Saturdays, but he stole that from him. “But I’m worried about you, Dean. The last few weeks have been hard - for the both of us. And I know you want to brush it off, say you’re fine, but you’re _not_.”

“I say I’m fine ‘cause I _am_ fine, Sammy,” Dean huffs, and resumes his careful shaving.

“You sure about that?”

Dean grips his razor a little too tight and glances up, meets his eyes in the mirror, and then the skin on his jaw is burning. He takes a step back from the mirror, barely registering what happened, and then he looks down, and oh god.

It’s not the razor. Or the blood. It’s _Dean’s blood on a razor_.

>

Dean’s sitting on the musty sofa with an arm holding Sammy, who’s burrowed into the heat of his lap and fast asleep. It’s cold, and he would get up to close the window, quell that chilled drafts that ruffle his hair, but he doesn’t want to move and wake up his brother.

He’s waiting for Dad.

He knows that he can’t go to sleep, because he’s waiting for Dad, and if Dad found him asleep he would get mad at Dean, so he blinks, long, and makes a grab for the remote.

The TV crackles when he presses the big button and it takes a few seconds for the next image to pop up - adults standing around, drinking stuff out of tall glasses. He asked Dad about them once and was told that it was booze. Some fancy kind though, he thinks, because the adults in the movie are wearing long, lavish dresses and trimmed suits, and they hold the glasses not like Dad grabs the neck of a bottle. If Dad could have this kind of booze, then they’d probably have a home too.

Sammy is breathing into his chest, little exhales, and Dean’s arms tighten around him.

The adults move, and then there’s a man in a box, but only one person is crying. He looks dead, and Dean’s seen dead people before, but there’s no red blooming from his stomach, and his face looks almost peaceful. There are roses placed around him, and it strikes Dean that they look a little like a halo, so this man must have been too good to die. The woman bends at her knees, sobs, and her chest heaves with every choke.

It looks like she’s dying too. But the other adults are still, faces impassive and lined, and the faint sound coming from the TV is that of static breathing - or maybe that’s just Dean.

In the coffin, the man opens his eyes. They are drowned-fish white.

>

“Hey, hey, hey, Dean,” someone is saying helplessly. He blinks, but when he tries to draw in a breath it stutters in his chest, squeezes and doesn’t let go, and his heart is slowing down, dragging him under.

His hand tightens on pain, warmth spilling between his fingers, something slippery spilling down his knuckles. It lets the cave of his sternum loosen, so he holds tighter, leaning into himself and wheezing. But the voice tells him no, no frantically, so he lets the pain be picked out of his hand. Dean doesn’t want to make them mad.

He has to wait and breathe and hurt for a long time before he can open his eyes.

Sam is sitting beside him, clutching a bloody razor. To avoid looking at him any longer, Dean turns his attention to his wounded palm, levels it so that he’s not going to stain the floor.

“Better?” his brother asks, still sounding a bit lost, and sure, Dean’s right as rain, so he nods. He knows he should leave now, get a bandage and straighten his posture until he becomes the guy that can comfort Sam, not the other way around, but he doesn’t have it in him to move. Tentatively this time, “Was that about Hell?"

He shrugs, nods again.

Sam doesn’t know all of his triggers - never will, if it’s up to him - and he wouldn’t understand why crowds can set Dean off sometimes, or the smell of salt water, or something equally as inane as saying yes. But he knows Hell, and it angers Dean, that he could have been weakened from something so expected, something that he’s supposed to be _over_ by now. He’s supposed to have moved on, and he knows Sam knows, that Sam’s thinking right now what weak bitch of a brother he has.

All Sam does is stand and offer a hand, which Dean refuses, and then tells him he’s going to throw out the razor and that Dean better not do anything stupid.

>

When he strolls into the Bunker’s living room to ask if Sam’s found a case, his brother looks at him like he’s gone mad.

Which he hasn’t, not yet anyways. He just wants something to work off these feelings, and a good hunt is bound to take care of that.

They drive to Boulder, Colorado on the trail of something that’s been ripping out the livers of husbands for a few weeks now. The sheriff points them in the direction of a few grieving widows and widowers.

They get through the first three women rather quickly. Their stories vary - he was out running, he never came home from work, he went out to buy some milk - and the only ties they can come up with is that they all disappeared in the same store.

“Freddy’s Convenience Store,” Dean reads off of a faded sign advertising the brightly lit store, and clears his throat. “Great. Let’s go get murdered.” His joke falls flat, and the minute he starts to stride forward, Sam catches him by the arm and holds him back.

“Hold on, Dean. It’s more efficient if we split up. You go interview the last spouse, and I’ll scout this place out.”

Dean tells Sam to stop goddamn coddling him, he’s fine, but makes his way to the fourth and last address anyways.

A man answers the door, disheveled in the harassed sort of way that excessive grief promotes, but it still takes Dean a second to figure out that he’s looking at the husband of the chopped-liver guy.

“Right,” he says, and clears his throat. Now that he’s going through with this, the easy routine feels off-kilter somehow, like he needs Sam here to ask the right questions and make up for his social clumsiness. “Agent Stark, FBI.” He holds up his badge and tucks it almost immediately back into his pocket, as if for once he’s not fully convinced of his own lie. “I’m here to question you about Toby Easton, your… husband?”

The man stares at him blankly for a second, then assents and lets Dean in. The house is clean, would be immaculate if it weren’t for the dishes piled up in the sink and a heap of clothes on one of the chairs, but the guy - Greg, as he introduces himself - still says, “Sorry for the mess.”

“No, it’s no trouble.” Hell, Dean had a way worse time than this. By the time Sam knocked down his bedroom door, all available surface had been littered with the empty bottles of every kind of alcohol he could get his hands on, and the entire place reeked of closed-in misery. Then again, it had taken him a trip to Billie’s for Sam to confront him about - “So, the night of the twenty-fourth. Where was your husband?”

“I don’t know,” Greg sighs, but continues at Dean’s questioning glance. “We broke up. Some stupid fight… I haven’t been the most attentive husband, and he confronted me, said we needed a break.” He takes in a shaky breath.

He laughs, and its forced, strangled. “I just… If I hadn’t let him leave, if I had been - _better_, then this wouldn’t have happened. Then he would be fine, you know, he would be… _alive_, and I just - the last thing I told him was that I hated him. And I’ll never be able to take that back, and he’s never going to know how much he’s _loved_-”

Strange terror is building in Dean's chest like mucus, and maybe his panic is visible, or maybe Greg’s just wiping away his tears, because the man lets out a watery chuckle and says, “Sorry.”

“No, don’t-” His throat closes off and he can’t say anything more, his windpipe shuts down viciously on the words and - “Thanks,” jumps out of his lips, small and painful, and Dean lets himself out of the house as quickly as he can.

In the Impala, he focuses on the tang of Alastair’s blade, the agony of his body being halved, and runs through the nightmare again and again until he’s calm.

>

Sam’s been much more productive than him, of course, and informs Dean once they’re settled in a motel room that he found nothing suspicious at the store other than the crime scene in its parking lot, but visited the mortuary. Livers taken out whole, he confirms, with gaping holes in all the men’s abdomens, but - _and get this_ \- also claw marks.

Dean nods.

“I looked it up.” Sam holds out his computer. “And it turns out we’re hunting a Kumiho.”

>

Apparently a Kumiho is a fox-lady - foxes that have the ability to shape-shift into humans, often beautiful women, to seduce men into a trap, and later kill and eat their prey. They’re a staple of ancient Korean folktales, and quite rare as well, but the Kumiho believes that its existence - hung between the human and the monster - is a curse. And in order to become human, they have to consume the livers of a thousand men over a thousand years.

Which sounds a bit hypocritical, if you ask Dean, but he’s not here to judge this monster’s morality, just kill it. Or rather, be bait so Sam can kill it with a stab to the heart.

“It has a penchant for men in a relationship, apparently,” Sam says. “You’re the closest we’ve got.”

“I’m not in a relationship,” Dean tells him.

Sam sighs. “You’re the closest we’ve got,” he repeats.

So Dean stands out in the cold, staring at the gravel beneath his feet, and waits for the beautiful woman to come sweep him off his feet. Sam is still in the car, watching Dean bounce on his toes and pull his coat tighter around himself, and honestly, he prefers it this way. If he dies, it’ll be for a valiant reason, won’t it? And that’s what he’s always wanted, told himself that it would be good to go out that way. Dean lied - the good won’t be how he goes out, it’ll be the relief of knowing he won’t have to do anything more. Of being truly, finally dead.

There’s a figure in a long coat.

His heart jumps foolishly into his chest, pounding in an adrenaline-heavy spur, and by the time he sees who it is, he fears he might tip into another panic attack. But it’s the fox lady, and her coat is grey, and she’s walking closer, hips swaying.

Dean wants to throw up, but he grins rougeishly. “Hey there.”

She walks closer, and he can see why so many men have died by her claws - her movements are hypnotizing, face shadowed and eyes glimmering like jewels, tongue flicking out to wet her lips.

“Hey, yourself,” she says.

It surprises him a bit how human she sounds, but he keeps going. “What’s a girl like you doing out here?”

“Waiting for a man like you.” Hands on his waist, she pulls him to her, and he stumbles a few steps forwards. He waits with bated breath, but all she does is rest a hand on his chest, over his heartbeat.

The intimacy is more than he’s had in weeks.

“I can take all that pain away,” she purrs.

She can.

Her head tilts up, licks her lips, and he can see her fangs glinting, but he leans down anyways.

The sound of a blade sinking into flesh, fracturing vertebraes, impaling a heart, splinters the night in half. The Kumiho falls to the ground with a dull thud, and Sam peers at Dean from the other side of the body. Dean can’t read his face, but he can sense his anger at the older brother - for letting it get that far, for almost giving in - and his chest tightens again in frustration. He wants to tell Sam he’s sorry, but he just grunts, “What?”

“Nothing, Dean.”

“Good.”

>

The second night, he drowns.

It’s dark, and black, and there is a pressing ache all around him, pushing into him, squeezing his skin tight to his bones. There’s a rushing in his ears.

His eyes open underwater and they burn like they’re on fire.

He takes in the first breath and he’s _drowning_. Panic juts up his esophagus and he chokes on the water, trying to dispel it, but it’s crawling inside of him. His arms and legs push out, hard, up and up, but there’s no surface to breach. He flails.

“Let me out!” he bellows, but the liquid swallows his screams. _“Let me out!”_

“No can do, Dean,” a voice lilts, close in his ears.

His jaw twists into a snarl and he spits out the name. “Ch_uck_.”

“That’s me!”

Dean clamps his hands over his ears, pressing tight, gasping out when it spreads a fierce pain up his skull, jarring and crackling. Both sides of his skull are being pierced through; his eyes cross.

“You see,_ I own you_.”

The ocean’s gone and he’s ten years old again and Dad’s telling him that he should have shot the werewolf, a man can’t just stand, see his old man being torn to bits, and do nothing, what kind a wimp is Dean anyways? And Dean nods yes sir, sorry sir, but Dad looks him in the eye and his smile twists into something feral, dangerous, possessive, and Dean wants to get away but Dad doesn’t let him because Dad wants him to stay and obey and Dean only ever does what Dad wants - so John says in Chuck’s voice, in Michael’s voice,_ “I own you.”_

He wakes up gasping for air.

On the other side of the motel room, a sleepless Sam glances at him, and all Dean really wants to do is die.

>

He supposes he should have expected this, should have seen it coming, but now that it’s happened, he wants to scream, beg, summon the darkest demon he can get, just to rid himself of this choking sensation. It’s not the physical sensation, per say, flaying the inside of his throat - it doesn’t hurt to talk, or rather, to not - but it still hurts like someone is tightening an arm around his neck, side of their thumb pressed almost casually against the pressure point on the back of Dean’s neck.

Dean is rubbing a hand against the back of his neck when he walks into the kitchen. Sam is already seated at the kitchen table. He pointedly ignores his brother and moves to make coffee.

When he sits down, Sam clears his throat and asks, “How are you?”

Dean shrugs and gulps down a too-big swig, but all that comes out is a soundless rasp and he swallows jerkily, breathing out as though that can cool his battered mouth.

His brother’s face twists. “Right. Well, I’m going to go for a run.”

Good, the kid’s finally getting out of his funk. Dean opens his mouth uselessly, but Sam’s already patting him on the shoulder and moving on. It takes him a second to question why Sam waited to tell him he was going out on one of his torture missions - did Sam think his brother needed that extra reassurance? Then again, he figures, if Sam left him one morning, he wouldn’t be all too surprised.

He goes on to clean the house. Somehow, since moving into the bunker - since having a - a _family_ \- the household duties have fallen to him. Cooking, cleaning, laundry, all that. In reality, they share the duties, have different laundry days and all, and with regular cases usually the task of cooking falls to whoever happens to be in the bunker at that moment, but for now Dean’s happy to take them all up. It keeps him busy.

He pulls the detergent out of the supply closet and wets a rag, starting with the table. It’s a methodical scrub, working with the grain of the wood, washing out the debris and germs. He moves to the walls, floors, hallway.

It’s a process too close to cathartic, so Dean increases his pressure on the surface until his knees are driving painfully into the wood, wrists bent awkwardly to satisfy the work. This is supposed to hurt. And at some point, this has become punishment. For letting Sam down, for Rowena, for Jack and Mary and for -

The stench of detergent is dizzying, strong and swampy, and he thinks, a bit too late, that he should have worn gloves.

His hands are raw and burn with each rub, ruby red blisters already popping into irritations, rising up along his palms in mountains, dipping into valleys of open skin. He’s never been afraid of dying before, not since Hell, but for the first time, as he goes through the motions, he understands what _I’m afraid I might kill myself_ means. He should have stayed in purgatory, should be there now, and he’s trying, he’s _try_ing to _pur_ify -

Someone is chanting his name, saying “Hey, hey, hey,” big hands uncurling him, grasping his shoulders and forcing his chest to open, and Dean tries to push them away but his hand brushes against material and he cringes back in pain.

“I’m_ try_ing,” he tells them.

“I know, I know you are, Dean,” is said softly, and the world jerks, suddenly, and cold tile radiates through the heat of his socks, makes his toes curl. A jet of icy water slaps him in his face and he splutters, convinced that this is where he dies, drowning like a fish, eyes snapping wide-open and lips guzzling, stupid and caught.

Sammy sharpens into focus. He’s still holding onto Dean, concern tightening his lips, saddening his gaze.

Dean wrenches his head out from under the bathroom faucet and says, _Jeez, Sammy, don’t look so worried, I just forgot to put on gloves, that’s all_, but it doesn’t come out.

“Let me see your hands,” Sam sighs. Dean knows he’s disappointed - it makes his gut clench, shoulders inch into themselves - and when Sam sighs again, he hunches further and sticks out his hands, allowing them to be cleaned and bandaged. “I’m not mad at you, it's just… working yourself into another panic attack like this and - and your nightmares and acting recklessly during a hunt… listen, you can’t just push it away.”

Sammy’s right. Dean’s not the one who needs this sort of speech, or care, and he’s definitely not the one that deserves it.

His brother finishes and looks up seriously. “I need you to talk to me, Dean.”

What, _now_? His vocal cords feel crystalized.

Sam waits patiently for a few more moments before his brow furrows. “Dean, I’m not kidding. You’re scaring me. Say something!”

He shrugs helplessly.

For a few more seconds his expression doesn’t shift, but then it drops into a pitying understanding. “It’s one of those days, isn’t it?” Sam’s been here for a lot of those days. He knows how they go. “Okay. That’s okay. You don’t need to talk.”

And that makes Dean bitter angry, because he does need to talk, and he needs to be rid the hands clenching over his throat, he needs that control back; he feels like some plucked bird without the security of his own sovereignty. The irony is that he can’t tell Sam to fuck off, so his brother squeezes his shoulder, lips moving in something Dean isn’t hearing, and then leaves.

Dean's an easy guy to leave.

>

The sky is blue-grey, soft and spreading in a haze over the horizon, and Dean watches its reflection in the darker waters below. Rippling with small gusts of air, they rise and fall in minute gasps, jostling his fishing line only slightly.

There’s bait, but no fish are catching. He’s okay with that.

Maybe he wouldn’t be, if he had somewhere to be, but he knows intrinsically that he doesn’t. All there is is open water and the chair beneath his back and the blanketing sensation of safety.

At some point he realizes he’s not alone, and tilts his head upwards to a fluttering tan coat and solid figure. The angel looks down when Dean says, _Cas_, and the corners of his mouth remain motionless, but his eyes squint in a smile. Dean’s going to ask him if he wants to sit down, but the words don’t make it there by the time he’s staring openly, soaking up all the Cas there is, ruffled hair and backwards tie and the lines on his face that aren’t pulled tight when he gazes out.

So the two stay, and it feels like peace, and the sky is unchanging.

>

When he wakes up, he does cry.


End file.
